Strange in the woods of Rudsk

September 26, 1942 – a day to remember

In the middle of World War II, the town of Ivanovo, today in Belarus, lived through one of the most tragic episodes in its history.

After the German occupation (summer 1941), the Jews of the area and nearby villages were locked up in a ghetto established in the spring of 1942. In about seventy wooden houses, behind barbed wire and under armed surveillance, more than 3,000 people were crammed together: entire families, elderly people, and children. The conditions were terrible – 20 or 30 people packed into a room, forced labor, daily violence and humiliations.

On September 26, 1942, about 2,000 ghetto prisoners were taken to the Rudsk forest, just a few kilometers from Ivanovo. There they were forced to undress and lie face down on the ground. Then, one by one, they were shot in the head. Their clothes and shoes were sent to Germany.

This mass execution was part of the Nazi policy of exterminating European Jews. In the Ivanovo district alone, between 1941 and 1944, over 40 villages were burned and more than 8,000 people were killed – including at least 1,670 children.

Today, a monument in Ivanovo remembers the victims. It is a symbol of memory and sorrow, but also a warning for future generations: genocide knows no statute of limitations and cannot be forgotten.

Belarus remembers.